Lee

Miller
& her son

Antony Penrose

Paper by Rachel Gruijters

Master Multimediale Vormgeving, KASK/School of Arts

26-05-2014

For seminar: A larger perspective on exhibitions
By Ives Maes
2013 - 2014

Lee Miller and her son Antony Penrose

Rachel Gruijters

Before we start: This isnt about an exhibition, nor a concert, nor a play. It is
more about the legacy of an artist, a quick introduction to that artist and what to
do with the legacy. This is indeed bending the rules of the assignment, but I am
willing to take that risk. Now, lets start.

How to tell ones life story in two pages? How to tell it in ten minutes? How to
discover a person through their legacy? How to tell that life story and show that
legacy to others? What do we keep, what do we toss?

Even though not necessarily in two pages or ten minutes, these are questions
that are relevant to my work, too. Thats why I chose not to write about one of
the exhibitions that popped up when searching on Google for most important
exhibitions in history. They might have been very important, but I was looking
for something that had something to do with my work, with me, how self-
centered that may sound.

Again: not necessarily in two pages, nor in ten minutes, but Antony Penrose must
have asked himself some of these questions too.

Antony Penrose grew up amidst the most important of surrealists, being the son
of Roland Penrose and Elizabeth (Lee) Miller. He was born in 1947 and always
thought of his mother just as his mother and not a very successful one at that
(Antony said in several interviews that he used to think of his mother as a
useless alcoholic). That is, until Lee died in 1977 and Antony and his wife went
up to the attic of their old family home. Thats when it all changed.

There, stacked away for years, he found his mothers old belongings. Things he
had never seen, never even known of. There were diaries, negatives, photo
prints, contact sheets and other writings among them.

She was a lot: A model and muse to several Surrealists (most noteworthy: Man
Ray and Pablo Picasso). Its the breasts of Lee you see when youre looking at the
torso Man Ray photographed, its Lees eye going back and forth on Rays
metronome and Picasso painted her six times in 1937, shes the actress in
Cocteaus Le Sang d un Pote. She was a socialite, hosting salons with her
husband where the cream of the crop would gather. She was a wife to Roland
Penrose, lover to some (among them Man Ray and Pablo Picasso) and a mother
to Antony Penrose. In her own right she was also a photographer, working from
her own studio and for Vogue, she was also a war correspondent for Vogue.
During WW II she was at the front lines, photographing the horrors of war. She
was also one of the first to photograph concentration camp Dachau. All of this, as
well as being raped at the age of 7, probably resulted in her also being a PTSS
victim, a depressive and an alcoholic.

Antony didnt know most of that about his mother and it gained a new respect
for her.

An article written by Pat Parker for the Telegraph (Lee Miller, the woman in
Hitlers bathtub, 11 Feb. 2014) ends with the next lines:

Lee Miller and her son Antony Penrose

Rachel Gruijters

He now spends his life preserving the memory of the mother he never
really knew as a child. Perhaps even now he is still trying to get close to
her.

How Penrose is trying to preserve the memory of his mother? By writing books
(The Lives of Lee Miller, Thames and Hudson, 1988 / Editor of Lee Millers War:
photographer and correspondent with the Allies in Europe, 1944-45, Conde Nast
Books, 1992 / The home of the surrealists: Lee Miller, Roland Penrose, and their
circle at Farley Farm. London, Frances Lincoln, 2001) et al., contributing to
documentaries (The Lives of Lee Miller, dir. Antony Penrose, 1985 / Lee Miller:
Through the Mirror, Dir. Sylvain Roumette, 1995), opening Farley Farm (their old
family home) for visitors, giving lectures and doing interviews.
So, thats a lot more than 10 minutes and two pages, but still he doesnt seem
satisfied yet.

How I am trying to preserve the memory (or better: restore the memory) of my
mother? By talking to others, by writing, by taking photos, by showing old photos
of my mother, by interviewing people, by browsing through her legacy.
So, thats also a lot more than 10 minutes and two pages and yet Im not satisfied.

So what exactly do we do? I guess we write books, make our house into a
museum, exhibit works, write plays, give interviews, lecture and make
documentaries. At least, thats what Antony Penrose, the boy who bit Picasso,
does.

There are several ways of telling a lifes story: in words without images,
in images without words or in a mixture of the two, without us ever really
knowing if the images give the words their meaning, or the words the
images their meaning.
(First line of Lee Miller: Through the Mirror, dir: Sylvain Roumette, 1995)

Please do not regard these two sheets of paper as me trying to tell you who
Elizabeth (Lee) Miller was, who her son is and how he deals with her legacy,
instead see it as a mere introduction.